It’s that time of the year when lists will be hitting you from all corners. 2014 has been the year when apps have really caught on the wave and technologists over the globe are curious about how things will evolve from here. In this article, we’ve put together a list of the most downloaded apps globally, as per Apple’s AppStore and Google’s PlayStore.
Here’s what has been trending on the iOS:
1) Name – Whatsapp
Domain – Social Networking
Start Year – 2009
Price – Free
Location – Menlo Park, California USA
Founders – Jan Koum, Brian Actom
Description – WhatsApp Messenger is a proprietary, cross-platform instant messaging subscription service for smartphones and selected feature phones that uses the Internet for communication. In addition to text messaging, users can send each other images, video, and audio media messages as well as their location using integrated mapping features.
2) Name – Facebook
Domain – Social Networking
Start Year – 2004
Price – Free
Location – Menlo Park, California USA
Founders – Mark Zuckerberg and Team
Description -Ranked No-2 on the chart, Facebook still dominates the field of Social Networking with connecting people all over the world. Facebook app connects you with your friends, get notifications and share images and thoughts more easily and quickly.
3) Name – Facebook Messenger
Domain – Social Networking
Start Year – 2011
Price – Free
Location – Menlo Park, California USA
Founders – Facebook
Description – Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application which provides text and voice communication. Integrated with Facebook’s web-based Chat feature and built on the open MQTT protocol, Messenger lets Facebook users chat with friends both on mobile and on the main website.Facebook reported in November 2014 that Facebook Messenger has reached 500 million users. David A. Marcus heads Facebook Messenger.
4) Name – Gaana unlimited
Domain – Music
Start Year – 2010
Price – Free
Location – India
Founders – IndiaTimes
Description - Gaana.com is a commercial music streaming service providing free and licensed music. Launched in April 2010 by Indiatimes, Gaana.com provides both Indian and international music content. The entire Indian music catalog is available to users worldwide, but only users in India have access to international music. Gaana.com features music from 21 languages – Hindi, English, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Punjabi, Tamil, bengali,Telugu and other Indian regional languages.
5) Name – Youtube
Domain – Photo and Video
Start Year – 2012
Price – Free
Location – California, USA
Founders – Steve Chen, Chad
Description – YouTube is a video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California. The service was created by three former PayPalemployees in February 2005 and has been owned by Google since late 2006.The site allows users to upload, view, and share videos, and it makes use of Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media video. Available content includes video clips, TV clips, music videos, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.
6) Name – Flipkart Online
Domain – Lifestyle
Start Year – 2013
Price – Free
Location – Bangalore, India
Founders – Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal
Description – Flipkart is an electronic commerce company founded in 2007, by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal.] It operates exclusively in India, where it is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It is registered in Singapore, and owned by a Singapore-based holding company. Flipkart has launched its own product range under the name “DigiFlip”, Flipkart also recently launched its own range of personal healthcare and home appliances under the brand “Citron”.
7) Name – TrueCaller
Domain – Utilities
Start Year – 2009
Price – Free
Location – Sweden
Founders – True Software Scandinavia AB
Description – Truecaller is the world’s largest mobile phone community for mobiles, and accessible via a Web site, developed by True Software Scandinavia AB. It finds contact details globally given name or telephone number, and has an integrated caller ID service to achieve call-blocking functionality and social media integration to keep the phonebook up-to-date with pictures and birthdays. The name Truecaller comes from the app being able to show the True name of the Caller.
8) Name – Instagram
Domain – Photo and Video
Start Year – 2010
Price – Free
Location – San Francisco, USA
Founders – Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger
Description – Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. A distinctive feature is that it confines photos to a square shape, similar to Kodak Instamatic and Polaroid images, in contrast to the 4:3 aspect ratio typically used by mobile device cameras. Users can also apply digital filters to their images. The maximum duration for Instagram videos is 15 seconds.
9) Name – Onavo Extend
Domain – Utilities
Start Year – 2012
Price – Free
Location – Menlo Park, California
Founders – Facebook
Description – Onavo Extend helps you save mobile data so you can do more of what you love on your phone without spending more on your bill. Once the app is installed on your phone, it works in the background when you use mobile data to find ways to save.
10) Name – Google Maps
Domain – Navigation
Start Year – 2005
Price – Free
Location – Mountain View, California
Founders – Google
Description – Google Maps is a desktop and mobile web mapping service application and technology provided by Google, offering satellite imagery, street maps, and Street View perspectives, as well as functions such as a route planner for traveling by foot, car, bicycle (beta test), or with public transportation. Google Maps for mobile is the world’s most popular app for smartphones, with over 54% of global smartphone owners using it at least once during the month.
And here are the apps that were trending on the PlayStore:
1) Name – Facebook
Domain – Social Networking
Location – Paul Alto, USA
Downlaods – 1 Billion
Start Year – 2006
Ranked No-1 on the chart, Facebook still dominates the field of Social Networking with connecting people all over the world. Facebook app connects you with your friends, get notifications and share images and thoughts more easily and quickly.
2) Name – Pandora
Domain – Music
Location – Oakland, California
Downlaods – 1 Million
Start Year – 2008
Ranked on the top list among the music / entertainment app, Pandora is a music streaming and automated music recommendation service that serves as “custodian” of the Music Genome Project. The service, operated by Pandora Media, Inc., is only available in the United States, Australia and New Zealand. The service plays musical selections of a certain genre based on the user’s artist selection. The user then provides positive or negative feedback for songs chosen by the service, which are taken into account when Pandora selects future songs.
3) Name – Duolingo
Domain – Education
Location – Pittsburgh, PA
Downlaods – 10 Million
Start Year – 2011
Duolingo is a free language-learning and crowd sourced text translation platform. The service is designed so that, as users progress through the lessons, they simultaneously help to translate websites and other documents. In 2013, Apple chose Duolingo as its iPhone App of the Year, the first time this honor was awarded to an educational application.[7] Duolingo won Best Education Startup at the 2014 Crunchies.
4) Name – Flipagram
Domain – Photography
Location – Los Angeles, CA
Downlaods – 10 Million
Start Year – 2005
Flipagram has topped the chart in its domain with most number of downloads in the photography section. It help people tell stories with photos, videos and music on their phone.
5) Name – MyFitnessPal
Domain – Fitness
Location – San Fransisco, CA
Downlaods – 10 Million
Start Year – 2005
MyFitnessPal is a free smartphone app and website that tracks diet and exercise to determine optimal nutrients and caloric intake for the users’ goals. In a Consumer Reports diet rating, MyFitnessPal was rated the best free program (with 83 points) in overall satisfaction, “maintenance, calorie awareness, and food variety”.
6) Name – NetFlix
Domain – Entertainment
Location – Los Gatos, CA
Downloads – 500 Thousand
Start Year – 1997
Netflix, Inc. is a provider of on-demand Internet streaming media available to viewers in all of North America (except Cuba), South America and parts of Europe (Denmark, Ireland, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, and Germany), and of flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States, where mailed DVDs are sent via Permit Reply Mail.
7) Name – NFL Mobile
Domain – Sports
Downloads – 10 Million
NFL Mobile brings in breaking news, in-game highlights, live game scores, custom team news, follow your Fantasy Football Team, watch Fantasy Live and more. With 10 Million of downloads, it leads the chart in the sports news domain.
8) Name – Trip Advisor
Domain – Travel
Location – Newton, MA
Downlaods – 100 Million
Start Year – 2000
Trip Advisor is a travel guide and research application, provides reviews of travel-related content and includes interactive travel forums. Founded by Stephen Kaufer, Trip Advisor leads the chart in its domain with most number of downloads this year.
9) Name – CandyCrush Saga
Domain – Games
Downlaods – 100 Million
Start Year – 2012
This app game doesn’t need any introduction. Developed by King , the match-three puzzle video game continues to top the chart in the game application domain in the year 2014.
10) Name – The New York Times
Domain – News
Downloads – 10 Million
New York Times Digital offers newspaper websites and databases, as well as licenses archive databases for electronic information providers. With 10 million downloads, it tops the chart this year with maximum number of downloads in its domain.